Final Portfolios

Purpose

As you have experienced, the weekly homework and final portfolio system is designed to help you organize your preparation for the writing of your BA thesis.

Following the first six chapters of “The Craft of Research,” we have examined how one prepares a Literature Review as the basis for the making of your thesis paper’s argument: by surveying what relevant professionals have to say about your topic’s issues, you are better positioned to consider the options and make your argument.

Submitting the Portfolio

As a group, you have made excellent progress toward this end, really! And to see that, we will devote this last class and the 2:1 meetings we will schedule after that to insure that you develop a realistic appraisal of your often considerable achievement

We will assemble the portfolio in class In class next week, we will first briefly review your final assignment and then you will be free to use the rest of the class time to assemble your files into a final document and review it to our mutual satisfaction

Submit the portfolio in MS-Word After combining the weekly assignments, format the document as specified below and submit it to our Dropbox by Sunday evening, 14.7.19 (if not 7.7.19 for those who are are free on 8.7.19). Be sure to leave there only a copy and retain your original

I will print it out and you have then only to add a cover sheet when we meet. When we meet, I will bring a printed copy of your portfolio as well as the HWR required cover sheets for you to fill out so that, together, we can punch the portfolio and assemble it in a simple binder

We will meet in your teams for a final evaluation. On 1.7.19, we will organize a schedule of 30-minute appointments for 8.7.19 for those who are free on that day, 15.7.19 (or some other time we agree on) for the rest of you.

Self-evaluation, your “greatest hits.” During this final meeting, and working from the self-evaluations noted below, you will have the opportunity to direct my attention to what you have learned. The key issue here is your identifying significant progress so that, although you don’t yet know what your thesis advisor might say, you have at least a very solid basis for understanding (and celebrating!) your considerable achievement thus far

Final Portfolio

As we discussed at the beginning of the class, the Final Portfolio Submission in MS Word directs you to assemble your weekly homework in one document and with headings, page numbers, and a Table of Contents designed to arrange each week in chronological order and including the assigned topics for that week and, as the Introduction, include the self-evaluations we will work on in our 1.7.19 class, below

Self-Evaluation #1 — based on Steps for Better Thinking

Bring your copy of the syllabus to class, turn to page 10, and following the “Task Prompts That Address These Skills” in the right-hand column, direct me to precisely where in your portfolio I will find the higher-order thinking skills they recommend and write a brief account of how you got there

For example, and this will be easy for you to do: at the end of their Step 2, identify how your portfolio best addresses the recommendation that you “Develop one or more ways to organize information and analyses to help you think more thoroughly about …”. One good way to answer this would be to identify where you discovered the value of outlining, where it helped you to work and think better, and in your brief discussion, indicate briefly another example, maybe in your note-taking, where you did something similar.

Then congratulate yourself for having made a significant, important step towards your goal, and in our interview be sure to point this out to me so I can confirm it

Do this for 2-3 of the other most interesting and impressive Steps you have achieved

Write this up, briefly (no more than two pages), insert this directly after the Table of Contents as your Introduction: Self-Evaluation #1

Self-Evaluation #2 – based on the HWR class evaluation

For this second self-evaluation I have rewritten much of the standard language class evaluation you willed out on 24.6.19 to address your needs and interests; addressing these questions will help you evaluate, in a formative sense, your participation in this class

Look for“Self-Evaluation #2 – based on the HWR class evaluation” in our Dropbox

Respond to the questions

Copy and paste the questions and responses into your final portfolo after the first self-evaluation